September 2016

The Overworked American

Just finished this book. It's a fast read. 165 pages. You can skip the last 20. It was written in 1989-90. Even though it is 25 years old, it does a great researched job of explaining how we got the current employment landscape we have. Some of it's stories use some dated examples, but if you substitute in "iPhone" whenever you read "VCR" it still works just fine.

In the last 20 pages the author flails around quite a bit with prescriptive remedies to the previous 145 pages of "problems". These types of books often do that though. I think they want to leave on an optimistic up note. But hey the book is 25 years old, we already know how things turned out, and her solutions are bound to be a little unrealistic in hindsight.

We tend to look back over our own lives & our parents lives and think certain things are just the way things have always been, more or less; but the last 150 years or so, there have been monumental changes every decade, and that seems likely to continue too.

More Marvel Legends

Some recent movie Marvel Legends. The far right Bootleg Vision is the most interesting of note. There hasn't been an official Movie Vision yet, so for the cheap price this bootleg was on eBay, he's a real nice addition to the shelf.

A little tall, but not so much that a tiny bit of foreshortening, or just placing him in the second row doesn't take care of.

Action Figures

I stumbled across a Schlieich Hyena in Walmart today clearanced for $3.50. I immediately thought, that would go good with my Harley Quinn figure. And it did. I bought one, even though she has two, Bud and Lou ("Who's on first?"), but I figured I didn't necessarily need two, so I just got the one.

Which brings me to a moment of self reflection on my action figure collecting.

Originally, I just collected Green Lantern merchandise, not even action figures particularly, just random Green Lantern stuff of all kinds.

Around 2000-2002, DC and Marvel both started producing 6" action figure lines.

At first I got a Green Lantern. But then being a DC guy, I thought I would start to build out a small Justice League of America collection. When the Marvel figures came a year or two after the DC Direct line started, I bought a couple.

Originally my DC and Marvel collection goals didn't aspire much beyond The Justice League of America Issue #200 and the Marvel TSR Players Guide cover rosters of characters.

I'm long past completing those rosters. Long past (other than a Monica Rambeau Captain Marvel that's never been made.)

At this point there are times that I think I'm pretty much collecting an up-to-date Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and DC Who's Who guide in 6" plastic.

It's kindof crazy at this point.

Someday, in the not too distant future, I figure really good 3D scanners and really good 3D printers will both be cheap enough, that I'll have the ability to scan various figure pieces and combine them into whatever obscure characters never get made.

Let's Go Surfing

This is from April, so maaybe it's not still happening. $150 for a box and $50 for a movie. Now that I have a small kid, I could see doing this as long as 3 or 4 friends wanted to come over and split the cost of the film, ala the way some people do Boxing matches.

Sat, 25 May 2013 07:57:39 -0700
I?m not a fan of the new Flickr redesign. It?s not even that I don?t like the visual look of it.My primary beef is: without warning they completely changed the service for paying customers. I?ve payed for a Pro account for years under the assumption that paying for a service would provide a little more reliability. Flickr has shown that not to be the case, so I?m planning to use it far less frequently and probably far differently than the personal photo site of record I have been using it as. (I?m also not pleased with their likely upcoming attention/advertising model)

I was able to put all my photos into one Set and download the full size images using a free service called flickandshare.com, so I have everything safely out of the service now. Likely I will eventually set up my own simple photo gallery (and give these photos a new home) on my website at chris-karath.com. Hosting your own services and codes seem to be the most reliable method for content that you want around for years to come.

Photos that are here now, will probably continue to be here, Yahoo willing, into the future.

Since Flickr has shown itself to be of unpredictable stability, and it appears to be transforming into more a social network than a photo service, I?ll probably plan on treating it as such. If you subscribe to my account for the action figures, I?ll probably from time to time still post a picture or two of those here with links back to my own site where I?ll likely start posting more photos.

If you follow for my personal photos, following me on Twitter or my personal blog atchris-karath.com will probably be your best bet. --- Best wishes, Chris.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:02 -0700
I've never actually taken the full tour of the Museum. It was free today, so we went through it. It's nicely done for it's sort of thing.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:02 -0700
Those light poles to the shore should be dry land

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:01 -0700
Stairways to nowhere. Grand Rapids.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:00 -0700

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:48:59 -0700

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:48:58 -0700
Grand Rapids Art Museum. This display is by a new guy who just joined our team at work.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 06:49:01 -0700

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 12:17:53 -0700
Both these guys have contributed a lot to comics. I'm not implying anything with the choice of pose. I figure in classic comic parlance though, these two comic heroes would be obligated to fight before teaming up to defeat some great evil.

Recent Blog Comments

Thread: p1825 Post by Jolloway2013-02-23 12:23:49 Hi Cris and other people who view this sight,
I just started a blog site jolloway.co.uk and I wonderd if anyone can give me any tips on blogging. I am curently using a site called word press to host me blog. I start around about a month ago and I\'m really struggling with it and if you do reply I\'m only 11 and found this sight by a photo in google Images.
-Josh
P.S. I love the background XP

Thread: p1706 Post by Chris2012-10-27 13:29:47 Fortunately, I resisted the DC/Master Bundles as they were pretty much only bundled with basic figures I already had. Had they been bundled with more unique DC figures, I might have alot more Masters figures at this point ;)

Thread: p1706 Post by De2012-10-27 13:06:27 I almost bit on Masters of the Universe when they were being bundled with DC Universe figures in the two-packs. I\'ve also liked the blending of sci-fi and fantasy but a lad only has so much room :-)

Thread: p1674 Post by T. Bass2012-10-24 20:55:50 Hi Chris:
Like you, I bought and just received an ONDA V701. Mine took 32 days (!) to arrive from China (bought from gadgetdealer.com... avoid like plague), and the box was beat to hell, but it seems to work fine ....with one exception.
That said, I like the tablet thus far, but a couple of things aren\'t flying right. One, it was advertised as having Adobe Flash ver. 11.1, but instead, mine came with 10.2. Yours? Not sure this matters, as Flash is going the way of the dodo-bird as far as Android goes.
My only real complaint thus far, and that despite trying everything I could find online, I cannot get NetFlix to work. This was/is one of the main reasons I bought it, as they advertised that it \"works with NetFlix\". I don\'t know whether it\'s the tablet, or the app that is the problem, but nonetheless, no love from NetFlix at this point.
I don\'t know if you are subscribed to Netflix, but if you are, I sure would like to know if it works for you on your V701, and if so, how did you get it going, and what settings are you\'re using to make it work? Appreciate hearing from you.
Best,
T. Bass
Applegate, Oregon

Thread: p1557 Post by davy2012-08-24 17:58:58 i kind of agree with you, and i\'m sure bale had the best intentions but the whole media circus at times is disturbing.
but if to had to pick on whether bale should have visited or not i\'d rather he visit for the sole reason that if he made any of the survivors feel good,even if it was only for the briefest moments, then it was worth it.
the victims medical and emotonals needs should be put first and if bale\'s visit helped any of them emotionally then i\'m glad